


Attachments

by GoodJanet



Category: The Bishop's Wife (1947)
Genre: Adultery, Angels, F/M, Falling Angels, Guardian Angels, Love Confessions, Tender Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-23
Updated: 2015-09-23
Packaged: 2018-04-23 02:06:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4859015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoodJanet/pseuds/GoodJanet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Dudley the angel falls in love with Julia, a mortal woman, he is willing to sacrifice anything for her just to be with her for a moment longer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Attachments

**Author's Note:**

> This wonderful gif is what prompted me to write this fic: http://maudit.tumblr.com/post/14368805775

He appears to her from seemingly out of thin air. He doesn't even make a sound. And when she turns away from the newly garlanded Christmas tree to see him standing there before her, she smiles.

“I was worried you wouldn’t be coming back. I thought you’d forgotten us.”

Dudley steps further into the room and closer to her.

“Forget you? Not in a million lifetimes could I ever forget you.” He pauses. “But I think my work here is almost finished. I’ll have to be going soon.”

A look of hurt flashes over her sweet face. Dudley moves closer to her, as if pulled by a red velvet ribbon, like the ones wrapped around the packages under the tree. Dudley grasps her by her trim waist. He thinks he could just nearly wrap his hands all the way around her.

“Where will you be going?”

He wonders if he's imagining her breathlessness. He hopes he isn't.

“You needn’t worry about that, Julia.”

“Will we ever see you again?”

 

“They seldom send us to the same place twice. We might form attachments.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Of course not,” he says into the side of her neck. She shivers in his arms, and a jolt of liquid heat shoots right through his stomach to his groin. He’s sure that he’ll have to do much penance before he can be forgiven for that.

She quickly takes notice and looks up at him with fresh eyes and soft lips that begged to be kissed. Dudley isn’t sure what would happen if he kissed her, but he doesn’t care. If the last thing he did in his lifetime was kiss the beautiful woman in his arms, then he would consider it a life well-lived. He finally gives in and kisses her lips and her face, and he feels her sigh into his ear.

He suddenly wishes he could cover her in feathers from his very own wings to protect her from the cruelties of this world. She was too good and kind to have to endure the harshness of reality. She had every quality in her that he was taught to promote in humanity. 

“I don’t want to leave you,” he confesses. “There are few people who know the secret of making a heaven here on Earth. You are one of them.”

 

For a moment, she lets him hold her, and he kisses her hard on the mouth once more before he loses his nerve. Everything is bliss until she pulls away from him.

“I think you should go, Dudley. Won’t it be easier if you just leave now?”

He struggles to keep his composure. 

He quickly pleads with her, “Don’t send me away. I know I’ve been a bad boy.”

“Dudley, please…This is all too much!"

She sits down on the piano bench and fans herself with a book of Christmas music. She tries not to think of Henry and how disappointed and angry he would. He would hate her if he ever found out. He would hate that she was happy with Dudley instead of miserable with him. She knows she should insist that Dudley leave now to maintain her dignity, though it pained her to think it. Dudley made her so happy, excited even, to face a new day and to try something new. He made her feel loved and alive.

He made her want things she knows she shouldn’t want.

Dudley drops to his knees before her. He shuffles towards her to grip her skirts and burrow his face in their silky, violet-scented folds. He considers her nothing short of a saint when she feels her gentle hands run through his dark locks.

“I can’t control myself when I’m around you. Please forgive me. You know I only want you to be happy.”

“I know,” Julia soothes. “I know.”

“I’m only here as long as you want me and need me.”

“I can’t even tell who needs whom more.”

“I need you. Desperately.”

He takes one of her hands and kisses her palm all over. A pale imitation to what he truly longed to do.

“Do you want me, Dudley?” Julia’s cheeks flush at her own words. She cups his cheek in her hand when he refuses to look her in the eye. "Tell me, Dudley."

“All I can think about is kissing you and holding you and making love to you all night long. Until the church bells ring in Christmas morning,” he says.

He pulls her back towards him once again, quickly joining their mouths together again before it was too late.

“Julia, oh Julia, my darling,” he murmurs into her mouth, against her cheek, behind her ear. “I love you. I love you, my sweet darling.”

“Oh, Dudley,” she says.

“Darling, I need you. Please, don’t make me wait any longer. They’re going to take me away.”

“Oh, Dudley,” she repeats. “Don't worry about that now. Just be here.”

Dudley gently strokes her hair as he kisses her wherever she had skin showing.

“I will stay with you as long as I can.”

Julia melts into his soft, knowing touches. His capable hands wrap around her hip and her waist to pull her in close while his warm mouth did the rest. Rather than pulling away completely when they need to breathe, Dudley leans down to mouth at her neck, kissing and licking until Julia feels shivers go up her spine.

“Is this what you do with the girls who've fallen in love with you? Do you trick them into falling for you, claiming you have to leave once it’s all been done?” Julia asks.

Julia feels him smile against her jaw before he pulls away slightly to speak to her properly.

“There aren’t any other girls,” he says matter-of-factly.

Down in her heart she wants nothing more than to trust him, but he’s making love to her in the middle of their living spaces, out where any of the servants could see them, and while the idea of it is wildly romantic, but she finds it difficult to believe him, though she wants to. All she can think about is how lucky she is to be with the handsome, loving fellow.

She holds her arms out to him, and he quickly settles into her embrace. She was such a lovely creature. She would’ve made a divine angel herself. Or perhaps a beautiful sprite or fairy. Some being with the power to spread joy and love and warmth limitlessly. Then again, she did a fine job of that already.

Dudley eats up the little moans she emits. They are sweet on his tongue, like the gumdrops atop a gingerbread house. He thinks he could eat his fill of her moans and come away with wet, sticky lips. Her nails scratch lightly down his back, and Dudley finds it difficult to contain himself.

 _The church bells would be chiming soon,_ his brain supplies. They would probably take him away at the twelfth stroke. Dudley laughs at the irony. He feels shame, but not enough to stop himself from saying what was on his mind:

“I love you,” he says.

Better that she hear it now before he was out of her life forever. The angels maybe calling him home, but he knows once he leaves here, it won’t be to return to their ranks. He thinks he might like to be human for a change. Dudley watches her face register his words, and he thinks he finally understands the term “fallen from grace.”

The bells begin to chime.

“I have go now,” he pants, wetly kissing her open mouth.

“Dudley…”

“Goodbye, darling.”

He winks.

-`-`-`-`-`

There’s suddenly a shift, and Julia shakes her head. She’s sitting in the front pew listening to Henry given his Christmas sermon. Her brows furrow.

Something was different.

Her hand drifts down to her coat pocket where she finds a small plastic wrapper that is holding a handful of gumdrops.

A jolt shoots through her, and she touches her cheek. She smiles, though she doesn't quite know why. She contemplates the candy.

It was probably best to leave the sweets for later.

After all, her husband was speaking.


End file.
